Sunday, December 29, 2013

Who Scored is one of the only places (if not the only place) that rates each MLS player each game, all season. They also rate another 10+ leagues that span the globe. Just like anything, it isn't perfect but it does give us a general indication of which players are doing well.

I like tracking such things but often times things like a game by game player rating might get over looked because of another story or just not enough time to put together a coherent thought.

What I've done here is take each player's rating when they started and broken each out into one of three categories.

1. EXCEPTIONALThis is any score above the best median player score on the year (Chad Marshall's 7.36, which was good enough for WhoScored's 2013 Best XI). The % in the chart is out of total number of player starts. I should indicate it on the chart but it's the holidays. Alright, I'll get to it soon.

2. ABOVE AVERAGEThis is the middle column. It's the percentage of times the player performed above the median starter's rating for all Crew players.

3. NPS (SOLID START)I work in the retail industry where a metric called NPS (Net Promoter Score) is very important. What it does is throw out the average scores and only look at the best and worst. I like looking at NPS with player ratings because you can really waste a lot of time dissecting average performances (or players). For this quick exersize I decided a 'top' Crew performance was 7.17 and above. A poor performance was 6.49 and below.

For all three above, the higher the better. I've sorted by the aggregate of all three.

One of the reasons this doesn't get a more serious look is because I don't have enough time to fairly compare it to the rest of the league. This just tells me which Crew players performed the best vs. other Crew players.

That said, I'm familiar with their ratings to say that a MLS level player should have a 'Net Promoter' above 50% if they have over five starts (George, Finlay, Finley, Warzycha, Schoenfeld are light).

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Major League Soccer teams are running down their best stories of the year and one I'm proud to be a part of is Uri Rosell's 2013 journey with Sporting KC. They linked to the Massive Report post I worked on where I claimed Oriol Rosell was the best young player in the league based on available player ratings out there.

Friday, December 20, 2013

The Columbus Crew announced yesterday that the Dayton Dutch Lions will now be an affiliate.

What this means is that the Crew will send at least four players to Dayton to play on their team during the upcoming 2014 USL Pro season (more on that in a minute).

This MLS / USL Pro relationship is only about a year old now so any activity between teams will be forging new trails. The Sporting KC / Orlando City relationship this past year was easily the most notable (and even a little contentious), but several teams have worked a deal:

MLS seems to be setting up something out of the MLB playbook and their minor league System. MLS wants all teams to affiliate or field a team (Reserve or U-23) in the USL Pro division by the end of 2015. MLS has also made it clear that they want to expand their footprint and market reach by doing this.

THOUGHTS, WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

My personal preference would have been that the Crew field a full reserve team in the USL Pro division and let Dayton grow on their own, independently.

Players down the bench for the Crew could really benefit from playing a regular schedule in a competitive league. You would also get to pepper the reserve roster with trialists (a luxury they now lose).

The argument against this is the same as it always is; Cost. But MLS, as a whole, plays that card too often. An investment in players is just that... an INVESTMENT. It will pay off over time because Ohio is rich with players and coaches.

The team could also charge 5-10 bucks for home games at Crew stadium that have minimal staff and make a few dollars off that. Hold bake sales, set up a Kickstarter campaign. I don't care. Get it going. The sale of just one player could fund your reserve team for years.

Another way a MLS team could take advantage of this to get coaches experience, try different tactics, try Josh Williams as a central mid, go crazy. It would be your team.

THOUGHTS, WHAT IT IS

I've said it a number of times this year; My favorite soccer events of the past year have been in Dayton watching the Lions. I was at the early Charleston Battery match, the USOC match against Deerborn Stars (a surreal match) and the Crew reserve match (which was fantastic).

Dayton, in just a few short years, were a growing team in a sports mad state. Not just in recognition but in competition as well. They had already knocked out the Crew in the USOC in 2012, tied them in a wild 4-4 game at Beavercreek HS, and almost beat them again in the 2013 USOC. In the USL they were also making ground as well by making the playoffs last year for the first time.

This connection with the Crew ties them to the top division in the US and Canada as well as the affiliation they have already with FC Twente in Holland. It's really a couple big steps forward for the young club. If the Crew were going to associate with any team I'm glad that it is the Dayton Dutch Lions.

My hope is that, even with this affiliation, they are able to keep their independence from Major League Soccer in the years to come. I do not want this to be a big brother / little brother situation, 'cause...

IF YOU AIN'T DUTCH...

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MORE ON THE DUTCH LIONS AND CREW

I wrote a good bit about the Dayton Dutch Lions this past year for Massive Report, here is some of that:

GHOST RESULTS, A look at MLS Reserves and how they did in the USL Pro division.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Gregg Berhalter and the Columbus Crew announced today that Jairo Arrieta will be returning to the team for a second full season.

After setting the league on fire in 2012, Jairo'S productivity slowed down a bit in 2013. Some of his slow down was due to call ups to the Costa Rican national team and some due to injury (there was also some poor man management sprinkled in).

Now that Arrieta has played a measurable amount of minutes in MLS (3396) we know what to expect.

There are three things I know for sure you will get with this player:

1. Effort
2. Passion to play in Columbus
3. 0.32 Goals per 90 minutes

That goal rate is fairly average for a starting MLS attacking player (his assist rate is slightly better than replacement level). Combine that with Dominic Oduro's rate of 0.41 over the past two years and you get about 3 goals from the two of them every 450 minutes played (if they can both co-exist in the same lineup, which is still a bit of a question mark).

QUICK THOUGHTS

Most people are going to remember this past year with Arrieta but he is a player that is capable of pretty outstanding things in this league and with him hungry to make the trip to the World Cup we might see that return to form.

That said; this latest move puts the Crew at 24 players and still on the hunt for another goal scorer because even top form Oduro, Arrieta and Federico Higuain are not going to get this team to 47-50 goals on the year (which should be the target).

It does put the team on the right track, however. The alternative of not having a player like him wrapped up for next year would have been a bit scary.

I don't have any solid estimates to give on his salary other than to say it will be less than his previous deal that was around the $225k range.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

From what I can tell the Columbus Crew have found their number one goalkeeper for 2014 in Steve Clark.

What of Matt Lampson though? Didn't the Columbus Crew sell him to fans and supporters alike as a more than competent starting 'keeper in MLS? There is little doubt that the this was done. Why it was done isn't clear but does leave open a lot more questions.

Like; Was/is Matt Lampson any good?

The simple answer is that he is inconsistent. Which comes from being young. Which is why Clark is in town.

Bear with me while I dig into some 'keeper stats (something I shy away from), as I think there is value here.

First place to start is a comparison to the guy that played on the same team. Andy Gruenebaum.

Andy started 21 matches this year, Lampson 13.

Goals Against Average
1.33 : Gruenebaum
1.38 : Lampson

Not a whole lot of difference here but it works out to be is almost two goals more a year were Lampson in goal (45.2 Andy, 46.9 Matt) all season.

Starts per Clean Sheet
5.25 : Gruenebaum
2.60 : Lampson

What this means is that Lampson, in his 13 games, only needed about three games to get to a shut out. Shut outs are good but this had me scratching my head. How could Lampson be shutting out opponents at almost double the rate yet have a higher goals against average?

This is where the inconsistency comes in. Lampson struggled on the road.

That's pretty stark from Lampson. It's wild, really. That home save percentage (works out to be 0.29 GA) he has might have buttressed Crew Stadium as a fortress but his away save numbers were off the charts low (not good).

In fact, in Lampsons 7 Away starts he has allowed an average of 2.43 Goals Against. During a season long campaign of 17 Away starts that works out to be 41 goals allowed! The Crew allowed 46 all year.

It's entirely likely that Lampson could have improved that number but there is some risk there. Too much for Gregg Berhalter and company to take, apparently.

On the season Lampson had a lower save percentage than Gruenebaum by a couple pts. On the surface it might not mean that much but pulling back and comparing to the rest of the league you can see that the gap is quite wide.

Had a short conversation with Bill Vegas (everybodysoccer.com) he seems to think that Clark is a big upgrade for the Crew. From what I can find out there, he seems to be... and for now? Clark is the Crew's number one and comes in as a signing that may turn out to be the biggest of the offseason.

Monday, December 16, 2013

O’Toole, unaware of the priest, smiled as the stewardess brought his drink. She was a floridly robust little blonde in a tight green tweed uniform.

“Oh, look at that ass,” O’Toole said softly, shaking his head, raising his eyes with approval. “That ass is covered with tweed made in Connnemara, where I was born… Nicest asses in the world, Ireland. Irish-women still are carrying water on their heads and carrying their husbands home from pubs, and such things are the greatest posture builders in the world.”

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Peter O'Toole passed away a few days ago on December 14th.

Gay Talese's Esquire article is well worth your time. Talese takes a trip with O'Toole a couple years after Lawrence of Arabia, to where he grew up. It starts innocently enough with O'Toole in full on mode in excitement of flying home to Ireland and ends up with him drunk and laying in the grass on the side of a mountain, writing his name backward.

I chose the quote above because it reminds me of flying with my grandmother to England some 15 years ago. Her home. I remember how excited she was. We were flying Virgin Atlantic and I distinctly remember her leaning over to me and devilishly muttering something very similar after a female flight attendant passed by, trying to get me to talk with her.

My grandmother is ten years O'Toole's senior and only just now slowing down. Stubborn lot, them. Some might say the best lot. I would not disagree. "So many great things from such a tiny little island," as she is known to say.

Peter O'Toole is more than any words I can type here. Seek out his work, or if one of his movies comes on television... stop, watch.

HGP: There is some gray area with Homegrown Players (HGP) in regards to their budget hit. It use to be all were treated as Generation Adidas type players (meaning no cap hit) but then, a couple years ago, it looked like it may be just a max of two that don't hit the cap.

I think the HGP cap hit gray area comes from the fact that no HGPs were making enough to hit the cap until, well, this year (and the Crew leading the way). I'm leaving them marked at 'on budget'.

Raises: I've given raises to returning players based on observations I've made since the last CBA. I am expecting Williams and Oduro to be getting significant pay increases(about 2x previous salary). For Williams, I am using Justin Morrow's 2012 pay jump (50k to 120k) as a road map.

OPEN SLOTS

The Columbus Crew have 7 open roster spots remaining. I would expect almost all of them to be starter quality (100-200k) with 3-4 of them being internationals (I).

Here is what I expect the priorities to be with the remaining 7 slots and $1.3 million in budget space:

Thursday, December 12, 2013

In somewhat of a surprise move, Chad Marshall was sent to Seattle this morning for an unspecified amount of allocation money (likely close to $150k) and a 2015 SuperDraft pick.

Marshall's salary of $360k guaranteed (and closer to $400k in 2014*) was just too large a block in the overall league mandated $3.1 million budget.

Marshall likely has one more year on his Crew "legend" contract that the previous ownership signed (saddled) him too (with) that Seattle is okay with paying.

Team watchers have noted that Marshall's overall form has dipped significantly over the past two years.

DANIEL PALADINI

Also today, the Crew announced the signing of three year Chicago Fire player Daniel Paladini for a fourth round SuperDraft pick.

Paladini made $87k in 2012 and is likely to receive a modest 5% jump in pay for this upcoming season. His 4 Goals and 5 Assists over 1515 minutes (0.53 G+Ap90, well above average) in the past two seasons made him one of the best "values" on the draft list.

Paladini is a MLS veteran and will be a game day 18 player for the Crew in 2014.

MY THOUGHTS on CREW MOVES

With Glauber and Marshall gone, the Crew have no regular starter from 2013 to fill the CB role. Many expect Josh Williams (a regular in the role in 2012) to become the main man but Gregg Berhalter has expressed a desire to get him forward on the right.

It would appear, however, that it will be Chad Barson, Josh Williams, XX and Waylon Francis / Agustin Viana in the back line for right now.

The addition of Paladini is a solid one for the Columbus Crew. They get an experienced player at basically a league minimum veteran's contract.

Gregg Berhalter and company did a good bit of business within the MLS fishbowl today but fans are looking for a signal that says the defensive minded Berhalter is looking to improve on the offensive side of things.

I'll take an analytic look at what exactly this could mean for the 2014 Crew in the next few days as more moves are likely.

OTHER MLS MOVES

DC United lead the way today with a couple re-entry picks to go along with signing Davy Arnaud from Montreal recently. While they may be expensive, these transactions do instantly improve a horrid 2013 United defense.

Another big name taken off the draft board before the draft yesterday with Chivas USA made a great pick up in Mauro Rosales from Seattle. Rosales was arguably the best player available.

There were a number of players that withdrew from the re-entry draft process before it started. Sometimes this indicates the player is working on / or has some other options. Notable: Kenny Cooper, Bobby Convey, Tommy Heinemann.

There are a number of players left that will carry over to the 2nd round this time next week that can be signed for a lesser amount.

For the Crew, Danny O'Rourke and Konrad Warzycha are still out there. There are also a few center backs to be had as well that Columbus could look at (Heath Pearce).

There will likely be lots of moves betwixt now and then, however.

----------*The Crew's official website is claiming that Marshall clears more that $500k budget/cap space. This is either his $350k salary + 150k in allocation money from Seattle. Or just the Crew making the medicine go down a little easier.

Monday, December 9, 2013

The Columbus Crew announced today that they have re-signed MLS veteran Dominic Oduro.

The specifics of his contract were not released (they never are) but we can speculate that he likely got a healthy bump over last year. My best estimate would be in the $200-250k range after out playing his $120k contract in 2013.

Picking up Oduro for anything less than a DP contract could be considered a win for the Columbus Crew. After all, there are only so many goal scorers available that you can count on to score pretty regularly in MLS.

But you can also count on Oduro to be a tad bit wasteful and inaccurate in his chance taking.

HIGUAIN's CONTRIBUTION

Oduro was the leading scorer for the Crew in 2013 with 13 goals and also bested his career best. He should have done this, however, because the league's best chance creator (by a long shot) was feeding him the ball in Federico Higuain.

Over the past two years Oduro's Goal per Shot rate of 0.13 ranks 45th out of all players that have a minimum of 30 shots (low, but enough to get general idea). For Dominic Oduro, that works out from 146 total shots and 19 goals.

What that means is that it takes him roughly 7.68 shots to hit the back of the net.

Here are some of the 45 players with a better shot rate over the last two years:

If you were to take Eddie Johnson's 5.35 GpSHT rate Oduro would have had 27 goals over the past two years and not 19. This past year, Oduro's total would have been 17 goals instead of 13 if he had Grown Man's rate.

Those four goals alone put the Crew on even goal difference for the year.

It's certainly possible that Oduro's chances came from his flat out speed and that it's quite possible that Higuain benefited from leading the league in chance creation because of Oduro. This doesn't change Oduro's finishing ability, though.

His 7+ shots it takes him to find the back of the net has been a constant though out his career.

7.08 : Last Year
7.68 : Last 2 Years
7.43 : Last 4 Years
7.45 : Career

With the above, you can see the Higuain influence but it still doesn't get Oduro into any sort of elite finishing group.

CREW NEEDS

It'd be really interesting if the Crew went on the hunt for a forward that is good at finding open space and can finish efficiently.

Believe it or not, a player like Danny Koevermans (4.56 shots per goal) or aforementioned Eddie Johnson or even perhaps a chance on a hidden gem like Antoine Hoppenot (5.43 shots per goal) is probably a worthwhile search for the Crew.

Bottom line. A player like Higuain bring out goals from an efficient player. He was able to take a well known MLS quantity in Oduro and help improve his goal per shot rate by a measurable percentage.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Brian Bliss was hired as the Technical Director for the Chicago Fire today and with him goes most of the 'boots on the ground' player knowledge the Columbus Crew had in the midwest region of the US.

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Bliss has his hands all over the 2014 Crew roster.

The most notable moves shaping next year's roster were made right before he was let go when he dropped Aaron Horton and Matias Sanchez from the Crew roster ("Those guys are done," was the quote he gave the press).

On top of that, Bliss also orchestrated the signing of C.S. Herediano left back Waylon Francis.

If that were it, you could probably say it was busy and surprisingly well executed work by Brian Bliss in a very short period of time.

But that wasn't it. In fact, his best work is possibly the one team watchers have just found out about...

MATT WIET, THE 31st PLAYER

Reports have recently surfaced that Bliss parked Matt Wiet with the Dayton Dutch Lions of the USL Pro division last summer with the intention of putting him in a Crew uniform for 2014.

What makes this interesting is that the Crew don't have any formal relationship with Dayton and signing Wiet last summer made him the 31st player on a MLS mandated 30 player roster max.

"According to the league, Wiet technically signed with the Crew prior to signing with the Dutch Lions. When Berhalter discussed the signing, he said it was done before he was hired."

What this suggests is that the Crew/MLS were paying for Wiet (or at least a percentage of salary).

I've spoken with a few folks down in Dayton about this and one anonymous source has echoed the fact that Bliss did place Wiet with the Dutch Lions. I've also been told that after his ACL injury Crew representatives were in the locker room with him.

The Crew were the only team in MLS to not officially make any roster moves all season. They sat at 30 players all year long despite season ending injuries to Eddie Gaven and Glauber.

Matt Wiet signing during the summer represents the 31st roster player on a capped roster size of 30 (again, as mandated by MLS).

WINGING IT

In his recent "State of the League" address, Don Garber admitted that MLS pretty much makes it up as they go along so something like this Wiet situation isn't likely to ruffle to many feathers or make any major news. Hell, Garber's admission that the league is making up important rules and regulations didn't make news.

Why the Crew didn't wait till this offseason to sign him is up to speculation but it is likely that he had some other offer out there and the Crew had to jump on it.

All of this would have been a shrewd bit of business had Bliss not been let go by new owner Anthony Precourt after the season ended.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

There isn't enough information out there to tell me if Matt Wiet is a good enough player to make it in MLS or not. I saw him play during the game he got injured but there wasn't much there to note other than the fact that a Crew target was starting for Dayton. At the time I thought it was Dayton being proactive or Wiet getting impatient with the Crew.

Instead it was Bliss locking down a player for a franchise he is no longer with.

What a tangled web.

Matt Wiet should be back to full training sometime in the the Spring of 2014.

Tom Morrison went by the name of Jock Anderson after he abandoned both Liverpool and Sunderland (as well as his wife and child) the night he and the Black Cats celebrated their only only League title.

"Jock" worked as a pea picker in Gamlingay. When he wasn't playing snooker at the local pub, he found time to play evening football with the locals. Gamlingay FC picked him up and with him, won every game he played in.

Game day program from around when Tom Morrison was with St. Mirren FC in the 1920s.

Tom Morrison was lost to history after his time with Gamlingay FC in 1936 but his thoughts on the game have not been.

One of the things I liked about his piece in the Inverness Courier was that it was written as if the pitch and players were right there in front of him.